Before using this agreement we recommend you read our customer guide.
You can buy these services through:
- further competition
- direct award
If you are a DfT customer you should first contact the DfT commercial relationship manager, Ria Morodore. Ria will help you to prepare and highlight potential needs.
If you are not part of DfT, you should still ask Ria Morodore for permission to access the suppliers.
Before you can take part in either a further competition or direct award, you will need to complete framework schedule 6 (Order Form and Call Off Schedules).
You can use our eSourcing tool to run your further competition or direct award.
If this is your first time using the eSourcing suite, you will need to register an account.
If you have already registered, you can log into your eSourcing account. Or you can use your own eSourcing platform.
Check your own internal policies and processes to make sure they follow your standard operating procedures.
Further competition
To award a call-off contract through further competition you should:
- develop a clear specification of your needs
- where suitable, use the available tools to shortlist the number of suppliers you invite to bid
- use framework schedule 6 as the basis for your call-off contract
- make sure that you amend or refine your contract deliverables, including liability caps, where needed
- develop your further competition award criteria, this will form the basis of your decision to award a call-off contract
- you will need to include your intended pricing schedule so suppliers can provide their pricing in a way that meets your needs
- for example, your pricing schedule could ask that a supplier provides an hourly rate or a fixed cost for the services
- invite all identified suppliers to submit a tender in writing by publishing your tender documents using an eSourcing tool or by email, in line with the public contract regulations
- set a time limit for the submission of tenders
- take into account the time needed to create and submit tenders and the complexity of your needs
- keep each tender confidential until the time limit for the return of tenders has ended
- apply your published award criteria to each submitted tender
- award your call-off contract by sending a completed and signed framework schedule 6 to the successful supplier
- suppliers should sign and return this document as soon as possible and they can do this electronically
- provide unsuccessful suppliers with written feedback on why their tenders were unsuccessful
- for transparency purposes, publish your contract on Contracts Finder
Direct award
To direct award under this agreement you should:
- develop a clear specification of your needs
- determine which suppliers are capable of meeting your needs by reviewing the capability matrix
- apply the direct award criteria to the prospectus of each capable supplier
- establish which capable supplier provides the best value for money
- contact the supplier you have selected and provide them with you specification
- give the supplier enough time to:
- complete their conflict of interest checks
- confirm that they are able and have the capacity to meet your needs
- if you want the supplier to carry out the work under an alternative fee arrangement, ask the supplier to quote their fees
- award the call-off contract by sending a completed framework schedule 6 to the supplier
- suppliers should sign and return this document as soon as possible and they can do this electronically
